Traditionally, display and end cap racks and gondolas used in supermarkets and like facilities are filled from the front. A drawback of this is that there is no assurance that the first merchandise placed on the gondolas will be the first merchandise removed by a customer. This frequently results in older stock remaining on the gondolas. To eliminate that possibility when restocking a gondola, everything must be removed from the front, following which new merchandise must be moved to the rear and the older merchandise reloaded from the plant. This presents obvious drawbacks and frequently results in customers purchasing inventory that is not up to date because the steps necessary to assure rotation are not taken. In turn, this can result in the loss of customer satisfaction and the permanent loss of customers who are dissatisfied with the quality of the merchandise they have purchased.
Typical merchandise aisles, such as in supermarkets, have display rack or gondola arrays which are fixed in position. The arrays are typically positioned between two parallel aisles which intersect a transverse end aisle. Thus, the gondola arrays typically include an end cap facing the transverse end aisle and one or more gondolas extending between the parallel aisles which terminate at the end cap. Consumers can select merchandise from the end cap when in the end aisle and from the front of the other gondolas when in the other aisles. It is arrays such as this which must be loaded from the fronts of the gondolas because there is no available alternative.
Back loading is known, but only in arrays of refrigerated cabinets and the like, such as those used for milk display and dispensing. In those cases, the shelving is accessible to customers from an aisle, via a door or like opening in the cabinets. In such an arrangement, the shelving can be loaded with fresh merchandise from a storage area behind the cabinets and shelving. Customers obviously can gain access to the merchandise from the aisle, but there is no customer access either from another parallel aisle or from the end of an end cap array, the latter because there is no end cap.
It would be desirable to provide a rack and gondola system from which customers passing down two adjacent parallel aisles and through an associated transverse aisle providing an end cap may select merchandise, while permitting the filling of the gondola system and the end cap from the rear to assure first-in, first-out selection of merchandise by customers. This will produce a system in which there will be greater assurance of merchandise rotation, less in-store loading and restocking time, and which interferes only minimally with customer activity.